I don't know how to apologize for this chapter taking so long without it sounding repetitive. I've been hella busy with classes per usual. New school, new schedule, new classes, new city, new expectations, new stresses, new busy. I haven't forgotten this story though. And I'm still determined to carry it through to the end.

[xxx]

Chapter 17

Lucifer took his time in collecting the necessary ingredients for the protection spells, allowing Sam time sleep on his decision. The following morning, he knocked politely on the Winchester's motel door. Smiling up at his vessel, he waited to be waived in before entering the small room.

Sam observed in relative silence as the Morningstar prepared the spells. In terms of the recipes, the spells seemed very simple, but Lucifer explained how rare and difficult to find each individual ingredient was and how fortunate they had been that he still had a few stashes of them left. Dragon blood, scrapings of unicorn bone, Leviathan black matter, the eye of a powerful witch, raithe tears, ferns from the garden of Eden (for which Sam gave Lucifer a shocked look. Lucifer, in turn, just shrugged), two angel feathers from Lucifer's own wings, and scales from some species of deep-sea fish that went extinct some two million years ago, all ground together in a bowl crafted from volcanic rock on a table riddled with various holy symbols.

Lucifer wiped his brow after the mixture was almost ready. "The last ingredient," he said somewhat cautiously, "Is the bone marrow of whoever is in need of protection." He watched Sam carefully for a reaction.

With an arched eyebrow and a shrug, Sam asked, "How big of a needle is that?"

Lucifer smiled. "No need, just give me your hand."

The Morningstar clasped his vessel's hand within his own. Sam felt an odd sensation creep up his spine, then slowly spread through his extremities before receding. Then the archangel moved away and circled his hands above the bowl, where Sam saw a yellow, viscous liquid drip into the mixture. With a flick of his wrist, the Devil stirred the mixture until it was a smooth yet unappetizing dark brown.

"Please don't tell me I'm drinking that," Sam joked. His smile fell at Lucifer's apologetic glance. "Oh you've got to be kidding me."

"Sorry Sammy. Old school magic right here." Lucifer lifted the bowl to his lips, whispered an incantation in a language Sam did not recognize, and then it to him. Sam cocked his head, and with only a moment's hesitation, tipped it back. Lucifer swallowed his amusement as the unpleasant mixture twisted his vessel's expression.
Sam shuddered after downing the last of it. "Now what?"

"Now you say yes, whenever you're ready. If I know Metatron - and I do - then there are only two spells he'd choose from to eject me from the cockpit and that sludge you just drank will protect us from both."

Sam turned to regard the archangel, and waited until Lucifer had mirrored him to ask, "You're one hundred percent certain you can defeat Metatron no problem? And you promise that as soon as you're done you'll get out?" Two nods in succession were the answer. Sam frowned. "Say it."

Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, Lucifer said, "As soon as I'm done, I'm done."

The younger Winchester exhaled a long, nervous breath. "Okay."

"Can't be 'okay,' it has to be -"

"Yes, then."

"Once more with feeling."

"Listen you ass -"

"There's a signal as soon as I have permission to enter but I'm only at one bar. Once more with feeling."

The Winchester pulled himself to full height, preparing for the less than pleasant sensation he knew from experience would come next. "Yes."

The vessel saw light, and then he became it.

[xxx]

Castiel jolted to attention when he felt it. The sensation was small, just a candle flame in the back of his consciousness, but it was there. And it meant trouble.

"Dean," he called as he sought out the hunter in his bedroom.

The sleeping human mournfully snuffled himself awake. "Cas, we've talked about this. Me. Sleep. 4 hours at least. I need my 4 hours."

"An Archangel has just bonded with his vessel."

Dean was awake now. "What?"

"When an Archangel enters his vessel it is a miracle in and of itself, all angels can feel it. And I felt it two minutes ago."

Dean sat up, all sleep gone from his voice and replaced with a slow-building mania. "How is that even possible? Two of them are dead, one of them's MIA and the last one doesn't have access."

Cas hesitated. "Sam has not yet returned from his walk."

"What do you mean?"

"He went for a walk last night and never returned. Lucifer… Was meant to visit me yesterday but he never showed."

Dean stood up, fists clenched, and moved to throw on his clothes. "Don't even say it."

"Dean, if Lucifer somehow convinced Sam to -"

"He wouldn't, alright? We talked about this, him and me."

"Lucifer's a very good talker, Dean, and Sam has a habit of letting people talk. If he convinced Sam to let him in then -"

"Then I'll kill him, that's what."

Castiel grabbed Dean's shoulder to spin him around. "Dean, listen. Before you hunt him down with an angel blade and demand that he vacate the vessel, just think. An Archangel has been reunited with his vessel. He's at his full potential now. He could break through the very gates of Heaven and kill Metatron once and for all."

The Winchester shoved him off. "Yeah and you really think that's the freaking Devil's reasons for suddenly having interest in his vessel again? He's been refusing to help us for months, what makes you think he'd change his mind now?"

"He'd change his mind for Sam, for the chance to be with his one true vessel again. He has the current one stabilized but it limits him."

Dean rounded his friend to get to his weapons mounted on the wall. He packed them in to a bag as he spoke. "Yeah, exactly. He wants the big guns back. I bet he was planning this all along. Deny us help so that Sam would come to him alone, then strike a deal to get back in and wham! Apocalypse Mark II. No other Archangels to stop him now, just Metatron, who yeah is basically a sitting duck now, but that's not the point. We're trading a big problem for an even bigger problem Cas. But not this time."

"Dean, he isn't like that!"

"Do you hear yourself Cas?!" Dean shouted. It was the first time in a long time he had genuinely shouted at Castiel. The angel paused. The human's arms began to flail and point and gesticulate as he ranted. "You sound like some smitten teenager trying to convince mom and dad that her creep-ass boyfriend isn't really that bad. What do you think? You think that just because you've been screwing him all across the world that you know what's going on in his head?"

The angel's jaw dropped.

"Yeah, I know all about that. Didn't say anything 'cause I figured that's your business. But now that you've made it my business by letting it affect your judgement let me let you in on something: sex is the easiest ruse there is. It doesn't take much and it does all the work for you. You get someone feelin' good they'll believe anything you say. He's been manipulating you. He's been manipulating all of us. Which is exactly what I knew would happen but none of you ever freaking listen to me and I was outnumbered so I didn't do anything. But now I have to go clean up a mess that both you and Sammy made by trusting this sleezebag." The Winchester took two steps closer to Castiel to growl his next words in his face. "And so help me God if I have to kill Sam to kill Lucifer, that's on you. His blood will be on you, not me. You convinced him to trust freaking Satan and now it's landed him right back where we were."

"...Dean," Cas reached out.

"No man, not this time." Dean raced out of his room, bag of weapons slung over his shoulder. "We've come too far to backtrack like this. We've lost too much to backtrack like this. I ain't about to let my brother undo everything he did that day."

Cas stayed where he was, frozen in place by shock and disbelief, as he heard the great metal doors of the bunker screech open and slam closed behind his best friend. Thoughts and doubts and emotions waged war in his head. Could Lucifer have really done that? Could he have manipulated them all so flawlessly in a way he had never bothered to last time? It was true that last time he had not prepared for the Winchesters - or Castiel - to be such a threat. Had Cas singlehandedly given him the advantage he needed to do it all over?"

"Lucifer," he pleaded aloud, reaching out through their link so that his brother might hear him, "Please don't be betraying us. Please don't do this to me."

[xxx]

The Archangel smiled when he heard Castiel's plea. Taking a deep breath, he corrected the stiff posture his Sam had taken for them before he granted his angel access. "Here that, Sammy?" He asked, voice projecting inward as well as out, "Cas is scared I'm going to betray him. The poor angel just wants someone." He cracked his neck. "I hope you empathize with some of his struggles. You and he are a lot alike, as are he and I. We're quite the trio. May we take a pit stop to assure Castiel that everything's going to be alright?"

"He'll be with Dean," Sam's voice tickled deep within the vessel's shared consciousness, "It'll be better if we break this to him once it's already set and done."

"Yes," The Morningstar agreed, "Wouldn't want him to pop a blood vessel with how much he'll no doubt be shouting at us. Though I fear Castiel may have already alerted him to our current situation."
"How could he know?"

"Lower form angels can feel when Archangels unite with their vessels. It's classified as a miracle of nature." He chuckled. "A lot of pomp if you ask me. Now then, shall we?"

Lucifer took a moment to appreciate the feeling of his wings as he stretched them. How he missed feeling their full strength every time he made to fly, every time he thought of their weight on his back. He turned his wrists and clenched his fingers as he flayed his feathers, marveling at the build of his human body and its meld with his wavelength form. Each muscle group he took a moment to flex and admire as his wings remembered their true power, the power that would take him back to the home that had cast him out nearly 5,000 years prior.

"It wasn't as unpleasant this time," Sam commented.

Lucifer tilted his head down and smiled. "We weren't fighting for control this time. It goes much smoother when the vessel is truly willing."

"I feel more comfortable."

Lucifer grinned. "That was me. Cooked up a little something for you while I was out gathering all the ingredients for the spell. I never wanted you to be uncomfortable last time, and I don't want you to feel like a prisoner this time. Just try to relax for this trip. It'll be over before both of us know it."

"...Thank you." His vessel's voice felt meek with reluctant gratitude.

"You're very welcome Sammy." Taking a defensive stance, the Archangel readied himself for the approaching fight. "Here we go then."

[xxx]

The air around Castiel shifted unnaturally. When he ran outside, he saw storm clouds brewing overhead. But it was not a normal cold front, and the clouds were forming too quickly. An angel was manipulating the weather. It did not take Castiel long to figure out who and why.

"Dean!" He jumped in to the passenger seat of the Winchester's car just as Dean was pulling out in to the road. The human flinched.

"Jesus, Cas," He cursed, "What is it?"

"Lucifer is preparing a storm."

"Yeah, you don't freakin' say."

"I don't mean metaphorically, I mean he is concocting a thunderstorm right now. But not just here, everywhere. I checked around the world; everywhere is covered in storm clouds."

Dean groaned. "Oh, perfect."

"Yes, actually." Dean looked at the angel quizzically. "I think he means to fight Metatron."

"And he needs creepy worldwide cloud coverage for that?"

Castiel nodded. "If the fight gets rough, the sky will alight with each blow they deliver to one another, but it would be visible throughout the world, not just in one isolated place. The cloud coverage will make the flashes look like lightning. He did the same thing the day he rebelled against our Father."

Groaning, Dean tapped his head against the steering wheel once. "Great, just great."

"You're misinterpreting," Castiel clarified, "I don't think he's setting the Apocalypse back in motion. I think this was Sam taking him up on his word. He told us that he could defeat Metatron with his true vessel. Sam must have taken matters in to his own hands."

"Yeah and that's why I'm freaking mad!" Dean roared, accelerating faster. "He let Lucifer in, man! He said yes! He thinks he knows better and maybe he's a bit cocky that he can get control again but that was a long shot last time and he only needed control for a few seconds. We don't have any plan to get him out again because he wasn't supposed to be riding shotgun in his own skin in the first place. Sam has a problem of doing without thinking and trusting everyone to mean what they say, and apparently so do you."

He exhaled deeply, trying to reign in his anger. Cas waited in nervous anticipation.

"You and Lucifer, you've got some sort of connection, right? Outside of angel radio?"

"Yes," Cas answered simply. He could question Dean's knowledge later.

"Then send him a message for me. Tell him if he even thinks about hurting Sam or stickin' around in his skin longer than it takes him to gank Metatron, he's at the top of my kill list again. And I will kill him this time, no matter what it takes."

Anxiety fluttered in the angel's chest. Instead of delivering his friend's threat, he said this, "Dean knows what you've set out to do, brother, and he's angry. Do not hurt Sam Winchester. If not for him, then for me. Please just do what you have to and then return Sam Winchester."

When no answer returned to him for a second time, he truly began to doubt if he knew Lucifer at all.

[xxx]

Sorry this was so short but it felt unfair to leave it sitting on my computer waiting for extra padding when it already felt complete. A bit more broken narrative-y than I've been trying for in this fic but not everything needs 4,000+ words to explain. Leave a comment if you like, or don't, both are okay. Until the next time dearies...